1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical performance information composing apparatus and method, and a machine readable medium containing program instructions for realizing such an apparatus and a method using a computer system, and more particularly to an apparatus and a method capable of composing a musical performance information of a polychord stringed instrument such as a guitar having six strings, wherein the performance information is capable of playing back a musical performance which will give a musically natural feeling as if played on an actual stringed instrument.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to realize realistic performance sounds of the stringed instrument having a plurality of strings (i.e. a polychord) such as the guitar, the double bass, the ukulele and the mandolin through an electronic appliance based on electronic information signals, the performance information should carry features and characteristics peculiar to the playing manners and the voicing (harmonization) on such musical instruments. For example, with respect to the guitar, the performance information should contain information (data signals) of unique guitar tones under such performances as the stroke performance and the arpeggio performance which are peculiar to the guitar and of unique guitar voicing produced under such performances. Among conventionally known or utilized apparatuses in the art, there is a type comprising a guitar shaped playing device to produce performance information which presents really guitar-like features in performance tones. A further type of performance information producing apparatus for similar purposes is the one that stores accompaniment patterns consisting of sequences of note pitches and note generation timings of the normalized chords and shifts the respective note pitches in the accompaniment pattern in accordance with each designated chord to produce the intended performance information involving the designated chords.
The guitar shaped playing device, however, can be played or manipulated by only those who can play the guitar actually. The performance information producing apparatus employing the accompaniment patterns of chords can hardly realize the really guitar-like voicing in terms of chord notes structure, and that it can be hardly expected that really guitar-like performance information is produced.